Recent Pythian Academic Research

It’s not academic research about us, The Pythian Group, but rather about our inspiration for our company’s name, the actual young woman who was the Pythian priestess, the Oracle of ancient Greece who would give her pronouncements at Delphi.

A longstanding theory as to the unusual behavior attributed to the Pythia during her oracular revelations is that she was in fact drugged, or possibly affected by gases emanating from the fissures in the geological faults on Mount Parnassus. She was known to enter a chasm “for meditation” before giving her pronouncements. However, modern science had found precious little evidence for any emanating gases until this recent research by George Papatheodorou, Emeritus Professor of Geology at Patras University, and Giorgio Etiope, of Italyâ€™s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, which appears to confirm that this is indeed the likely explanation.

If you are interested in this type of “Pythian” research, then by all means read up at the Times Online, in their article High priestess of Delphi was high on oracle gases.